I’m a big fan of the comic and show Teen Titans and Majesco has brought them to the console world. Not much of the story has been revealed, but we know that the game includes more than 10 of the villains from the series including Slade, Cinderblock, Jinx, and more. You start off with the standard Titans team: Raven, Starfire, Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Robin, but you can also unlock at least 10 more characters. You can switch between which Titan you want to play as in real time, which is good because each Titan has unique abilities. There is a multi-player mode where you can either do Co-Op or up to 4 player versus. I haven’t gotten a chance to play the game yet, but from what we’ve seen it looks promising. Teen Titans will be on Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube and is scheduled for release early 2006.

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You know, this is the kind of thing that just proves that AOL really has lost its over the last, oh, 12 years or so. Recently, they dropped their prices in an effort to gain more subscribers since people are leaving them in droves. Hell, they even started selling their own branded PC with the AOL service thrown in! So, they dropped the dial-up price from $24 to $20, and their BYOA plan from $15 to $10. Ready for the best part? This price hike brings the prices back up to where they were - and the lower prices weren’t even in effect for a full month! It’s things like this that put a smile on my face.

The Gizmondo multi-entertainment handheld device has finally received a firm United States launch date. You can expect to be able to pick one up on August 11, 2005. I have been messing around with it at E3, and personally I am not too impressed with the unit. I mean, it’s cool that there are some GPS-enabled games and all, but one can only have so many handheld devices. The Gizmondo seems to be a jack-of-all-trades, but a master of none.

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Check out this image - it was supposedly snagged from Google’s Factory Tour presentation. It’s cool, I guess. I just don’t see the overall excitement about Google creating a portal. News, mail, weather, sports, movie showtimes, yadda, yadda…this has been available from guys like Yahoo! and MSN for years.

More details have been released about Kingdom Hearts II for the Playstation Two. The first game in this series was a huge hit and a different type of RPG. This series was the first to incorporate Disney characters with characters from the Square Enix world, whether they be new characters or re-worked ones. The next installment in the series takes place a year after the GBA game Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, with Sora and pals meeting up with new ones along the way. The story is about Sora looking for his lost friend Riku, while Donald and Goofy are looking for their King. The sequel will take gamers through new and already traveled worlds. Look out for Kingdom Hearts II to hit stores this holiday. Also, keep an eye out for pictures and media files we’ll be posting soon.

So the Wayans Brothers are here at E3 to promote their new trading card/cell phone game “The Dozens”. It is basically a game where you swap “Your momma” jokes with a friend (or stranger for that matter), and score points based on the originality or hilarity of the diss. We got a few moments to speak with Shawn and Marlon Wayans about The Dozens, but they were more interested in making fun of all the E3 schwag I had on me. Click here to download the MP3, or you can just subscribe to the Gear Live Podcast feed. Pardon the yelling - E3 is loud.

This weeks edition of The Final Cut, Devin takes a look at Episode III. Last week she gave us a look at the various season finales taking place on television:

This week we’ll take a look at Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, a movie which hits theaters on Thursday, May 19th, and will have many theaters featuring a 12:01am showing to accommodate eager fans. Revenge of the Sith is the third and final installment of the Star Wars prequels and will bridge the gap between the Star Wars movies of the past 6 years and the original Star Wars, which was released in 1977. All 6 films in the Star Wars series have been produced by George Lucas. Lucas also has writing credits on all 6, and he directed Episodes, I, II, and III.

These days, Microsoft Internet Explorer really is a risk to use. It is full of holes which can allow others to manipulate your computer, either through taking control of it manually or via spyware. Alternative browsers like Firefox and Opera offer great peace of mind as well as increased functionality. Check out this article which compares feature sets, as well as usage on systems wunning Windows 2000, Mac OS X 10.3.9, and SuSE Linux 9.1. Remember, Opera does have a small fee associated with it, so keep that in mind when comparing.

One thing your visitors will not appreciate is your site taking more of their time than it needs to. One thing which you may think is a cool addition is the splash page. Hey - it delivers your logo straight to your captive audience, and you can even play a cute flash video with matching audio! Bad move. When someone types in YourSite.com, they want to see the information that they are looking to find in the smallest amount of time possible. Any type of introductory page will take time to load, and usually requires a click for the reader to move on and get to the content navigation tools. My advice is to simply leave it out - it is useless and really is more of a turn off if anything.

Earlier today we got a look at Saitek’s new PC game controllers, and figured we would bring you the goods. First up is the P990 Dual Analog. Let me preface this by letting you know that Saitek has decided to switch their hardware focus to cater to the first person shooter category. That being said, all of their new controllers reflect that mentality. We weren’t able to get our hands on any of them, so our impressions are purely visual.

So, here we have the P990 Dual Analog which features backlit buttons and increased grip. I must say, the backlit button do look smooth - but control is more than just looks. There is an FPS button which automatically configures the controller for FPS games so that you no longer need to rely on the mouse, which the right analog stick taking its place. Saitek’s Smart Technology software allows for advanced controller programming by identifying your specific control setup for each game you own. One thing I don’t know about is the D-Pad. It’s a personal thing, but I just don’t like when they are shaped like that. Oh, you can’t see them in the image, but there are 4 shoulder trigger on this one as well. It will be available in July for a price of $20 USD.